


Battle Plans

by blueteak



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Boxing & Fisticuffs, Enemies to Friends, Gen, Plans For The Future, Teaching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5053774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueteak/pseuds/blueteak
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Calla decides that Gansey needs to learn to box and Ronan needs to learn how to teach boxing. Calla and Ronan find that they have more in common than they think and they both discover something about Gansey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Battle Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [gingerschnapps](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingerschnapps/gifts).



After Gansey broke his thumb punching Whelk, Calla had pulled him aside and insisted that she teach him how to box, properly. She had also insisted that Ronan observe so that he would learn how to teach boxing, properly.

Gansey would not have predicted that Ronan would agree to accompany them. Apparently, however, while he had not been able to bring himself to actually connect with Gansey while teaching him—it seemed Ronan only ever pulled his punches while teaching him to box—he was more than ready to watch Gansey and Calla exchanging blows. Sometimes Gansey really didn’t want to know. 

Ronan had looked decidedly less gleeful when Calla, observing Gansey’s gloves, had thrown them at him, letting him know she wasn't at all impressed with her: “Next time, dream him up some gloves with the thumbs separated or learn how to dream him up a new thumb. I don’t even know what you were thinking, letting him use these.”

Ronan glanced down at the gloves, confusion and guilt apparently winning out over anger. “When my father taught me, we didn’t use them. This is what I thought they were like,” he explained. 

Calla, to Gansey’s relief, let that go and turned to the tape Gansey had brought. “Well, this looks good, at least. Let me see you tape his hands.”

Ronan taped him quickly, but almost reverently, as though readying him for battle. That thought made Gansey unaccountably nervous. He glanced over at Calla, who was determinedly taping herself while watching them. He looked back down, watching Ronan’s quick fingers working on the bindings that would help keep him safe. Thinking of it that way warmed him. 

When Ronan finished, letting him go with a quick tap to the knuckle, Calla stepped over. 

She captured one of his taped hands between her own, examining it from this angle and that, most likely to annoy Ronan, before nodding. “Good. Now, Gansey, let me see you tape them yourself.”

Gansey fought his way clear of the tape, then started looping and circling in the way he vaguely recalled Ronan doing. 

Ronan winced. 

“Good job, Gansey. You’d break your wrist as well as your thumb this way." She turned her frosty gaze on Ronan, while still speaking to Gansey. "Ronan should have told you what he was doing while he was doing it." She had enough censure to go around, however. "And you should have paid more attention to what he was doing instead of dreaming of Welsh kings, or whatever else it was you may have been thinking about.”

Gansey tried to stop himself from blushing. Ronan grabbed one of Gansey’s clumsily-taped hands and started furiously undoing the bindings. It was hard to tell whether he was angry with himself, Calla, Gansey, or all three. 

He started to re-tape Gansey’s left hand, explaining in an exaggeratedly loud and slow voice that he needed to start by wrapping the wrist three or four times, only to be cut off by Calla. 

“Hands off him. Don’t let him get distracted, this time. Just talk him through it. Without being an asshole, if you can.”

Looking nothing short of murderous, Ronan completed his instructions. Calla then made Gansey demonstrate that he could go through the steps himself.

Finally, after Gansey had started to feel like an incorrectly preserved mummy, she threw an extra set of thumb-correct gloves at him and told him they were ready to go. 

The gloves positively reeked and probably contained the sweat of at least five people. Gansey wanted his dream gloves back, but Ronan had chucked his incorrect creations. He put the borrowed gloves on slowly, unable to keep his nose from wrinkling at the smell.

Gansey caught both Calla and Ronan rolling their eyes at him, and also the moment they caught that they were both doing it and looked away. 

After making sure that Gansey knew the difference between an uppercut, a hook, and a jab, Calla circled him, muscles flexing, eyes a little too eager. Until then, Gansey hadn’t let the idea sink in that there would be actual punching. Against someone who was practically Blue’s mother. 

“I…maybe we should start by using the bag?”

Calla’s eyes narrowed. “Worried about fighting a woman, Gansey? You must know I’ll wipe the floor with you.”

Truth be told, Gansey *was* worried about fighting a woman, even one as formidable as this one. If the press got a hold of it, there would be horrified commentary at the image of the Golden Boy trading blows with a woman, his mother would be horrified at the press, Helen would laugh and laugh and laugh….

In visualizing Helen in hysterics while she placed a cut of Kobe beef over his eye—honestly, Helen would be laughing too hard to even hold the meat straight—Gansey realized Calla was right. He was the one who was going to get hurt, if anyone was. Calla was indeed “going to wipe the floor” with him and he was an idiot for being worried about the narrative the imaginary reporters in a decrepit Henrietta gym could construct. 

So. Might as well erase any suspicion that he had been about to play the gentleman card and encourage her to bring it on at the same time. “I’m more worried about what godawful tea you and Persephone will try to make me drink after you knock me out.”

Calla grinned. “Well now, that makes sense. You better believe I’ll be forcing some of our delicious new skullcap and St. John’s Wort blend down your throat if I see anything that looks like it’ll bruise. You’ll be too weak to stop me, and The Snake will be too busy laughing to assist you.”

Gansey grimaced good-naturedly. “You’re not wrong.”

Ronan grinned, slightly less good-naturedly. “No, she’s not.”

Gansey glared, and then they were off, with Ronan yelling moves to Gansey until Calla threatened to go for him next. 

It….was not going well. After a few minutes, Gansey was convinced that his stomach would never again feel unbruised. He’d attempted to keep his defenses strong, but Calla was lightning fast, darting punches under his guard and tricking him into taking swings that left him open. 

Finally, nauseated, exhausted, and blinded by sweat, Gansey decided to stop trying to use his mind and body together and use his knowledge of what was to come (Adam had been acting strange around him ever since that conversation about St. Mark's Day) to his advantage instead.

“Why are you even bothering to teach me this,” he panted, dodging a swing that would have felled him earlier in their practice. “I know I’m on the death list this year anyway.”

Calla froze, stunned. Gansey started to throw a hook, but turned at the sound of the gym door slamming. Ronan. Christ. 

Calla’s next punch dropped him. “You’re partly right,” she said, standing over him. “We should prioritize sword play over boxing.” 

“Ow,” was all Gansey could say over the ringing in his ear. 

“Get up,” Calla said, offering him a hand that was now free of both gloves and tape—man, she was fast—“You had it coming, though I will say that I’m impressed by the level of hidden sneak in you. There may be hope for you yet.”

Gansey had no idea of what any of that meant. He did know, however, that they needed to get to 300 Fox Way, fast. Ronan had most likely sped over there to interrogate Blue and he wasn’t sure either of them would survive that experience. 

Arms starting to shake from fatigue, Gansey peeled off his gloves, unraveled the tape, and ran for the Pig, Calla following from close behind and snatching the keys from his fingers. He started to protest that he was fine to drive, but all argument died at the look she gave him. 

They didn’t speak on the way, though Gansey’s brain buzzed with questions he was too anxious and exhausted to ask. 

They found Ronan and Blue wrapped around one another on the sofa, Blue’s head tucked under Ronan’s chin. 

Gansey and Calla stared them like they’d never seen them before. Ronan and Blue looked at Gansey as though he were already a ghost, then Ronan rushed at him, fist pulled back.

Gansey closed his eyes. He knew it was cowardly, but he couldn’t face the betrayal and hurt in Ronan’s eyes. Not yet. Maybe after Ronan’s punch wiped the slate clean, if it could be wiped clean. Christ, he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten the effect his revelation could have on Ronan in his desire to stymie Calla.

The punch never connected. At the last second, Ronan had opened his fist to a grab at Gansey’s sweaty shirt instead and pulled him into a bone-crushing hug. Seconds later, Gansey felt Blue’s equally bone-crushing arms encircling him from behind. It was as though they believed Death’s bony hand wouldn’t be able to tap him on the shoulder if they simply surrounded him on both sides. 

Calla, who had let them be and gone off to the kitchen, stood in the doorway and cleared her throat. “Touching as this is, someone needs to come drink his tea.”

Gansey groaned good-naturedly as though he and his friends didn’t know he was about to die. Ronan looked like he was tempted to try punching Gansey again for pretending nothing was going on, and Blue rolled her eyes at the both of them and herded them toward the table. 

They sat in silence around the table for a moment, Gansey letting the warmth of his mug ease some of the trembling in his arms even as the smell of it repulsed him. 

Just as Gansey finally took a sip of the disgusting concoction, Ronan spoke. “So. He’s going to die soon.”

Gansey spat out the tea while Calla glared at both of them and Blue bit her lip. 

“Yes,” Calla answered matter-of-factly. “But he’ll be back.”

“So what you’re saying is that Gansey’s like The Terminator?” Ronan sneered, even as he shifted closer to him, reluctant to let him out of range. 

“Yes,” Calla allowed. “But much, much less good at fighting.”

“How?” Gansey asked softly. Out of all the questions he had, it was the only one he could voice. It contained all of the other questions within it, anyway.

Calla took his hand. “I don’t know. But we’ll work on fencing and boxing. All of us. Parrish too. And none of us will pull our punches,” she said, staring at Ronan.

Ronan smiled at her, all teeth, but with a lack of heat that made it clear he was teasing. “I won’t, with you.”

“Oh, I can’t wait,” Calla said. “Now, drink that tea,” she said to Gansey.

Somehow, now that it was out in the open and the worst that had happened was that he was forced to drink this tea, Gansey felt better. Calla hadn’t given him any easy assurance and none of them, it seemed, had any idea how this was going to play out, but they would be prepared for fencing, boxing, and, if Calla had her way, yoga, when the time came.


End file.
